Roche Polska and its distributor Hand-Prod concluded an illegal agreement restricting competition - decided the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection. Cezary Banasiński issued a ban for the two companies to agree on the terms of bids for the sale of drugs to treat anaemia, and imposed the fines for a total amount of over 306 thousand zloty

On 24 July 2003 the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection started antimonopoly proceedings against Roche Polska and its distributor Hand-Prod in connection with a suspicion of an illegal agreement between the companies. During the investigation it was found out that the companies under a mutual agreement intended to agree on the terms of bids placed for the sale of Recormon and NeoRecormon (drugs containing human erythropoietin - EPO) in central tenders organised by the Ministry of Health. The tenders were to select suppliers to most public health service entities.

As the Office found out, the co-operation between the companies provided, that in each central tender the price offered by Hand-Prod was to be agreed with Roche Polska. In the opinion of the Office, insertion of a provision between the parties, whose goal was to restrict distributor’s freedom, is a practice contrary to the antimonopoly law.

In view of the above, there were fines imposed on the enterprises. They were differentiated in view of the extent of guilt and the financial standing of both companies. Roche Polska was punished with a fine of 235 850 zloty (EUR 50 thousand) and Hand-Prod is to pay 70 755 zloty (EUR 15 thousand).

In case of Roche Polska, the President of the Office decided that the penalty was to be repressive. The amount allows for contractual strength of the company which is the sole importer of Recormon and NeoRecormon in Poland and had major impact on the contents of the agreement. On the other hand, the anticompetition provision had never been used, so there was no actual negative market effect, which resulted in a lower penalty.

The decision of the President of the Office may be appealed to the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection.

In June of this year, for similar practices, the President of UOKiK imposed fines of almost 3.8 million zloty on Johnson & Johnson and its distributors: Compol and Hurtofarm.

Additional information:
Elżbieta Anders, Spokesperson of UOKiK
International Relations and Communication Department
Office of Competition and Consumer Protection
Pl. Powstańców Warszawy 1, 00-950 Warsaw
Ph.: (+48 22) 827 28 92, 55 60 106, 55 60 314
E-mail: eanders@uokik.gov.pl